Rodney came into the kitchen to find his mother sitting at the small table, still in her bathrobe, hunched over her coffee, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. Her hair was pulled back from her face with a fat, plastic clip and the skin below her eyes was thick and reddened, as if she had been sitting up all night.
He tugged at the refrigerator door and stared at the bottle there on the shelf. There was Otis Dell in that milk for sure, and all over the glass, where his mouth had wrapped itself around the rim. Everything in that space had been touched, Rodney was certain—things opened and prodded through, a stranger’s fingers picking at their bread and cheese, moving things willy-nilly from one place to another.
“You want some breakfast?” his mother asked.
“We need more milk.”
“I thought we had some,” she said. She shifted in her chair to look part-ways over her shoulder.
Rodney swung the door closed and went to the cupboards, opening and closing them one by one in search of something he could take with him. There were cans of soup and sauce, and boxes of crackers and dry casserole mixes, as there had always been.
His mother shook her head no.
He opened a box of soda crackers and took a sleeve from it. “So is he your boyfriend, now?”
“Oh, Rodney. Don’t do this.”
“You said before it was okay to look for something, right? I’m just wondering if that’s what you were talking about when you said it. You had to have known him a long time if—”
“You want to know if I’ve been carrying on with Otis for a while,” she said, rubbing her fingers over her eyes. “You want to know if maybe your father had good reason to be sitting there in his car spying on me.”
He wanted to answer that, tell her yes or even maybe. But nothing would come.
“Things can happen fast, Rodney. I can’t explain it so you’ll understand. I’m not perfect.”
“No one’s perfect. Dad’s not perfect.”
“I’m not a bad mother, or a bad wife.” She took a drag off her cigarette and held it in for a moment. Rodney said nothing, and she watched him from her chair, her eyes ticking over his face, before finally blowing out the smoke in a blue tumble.
“I don’t like him,” Rodney said. “There’s something about him that’s not good.”
“I wasn’t aware someone died and made you judge of everyone.” She closed her eyes and put her head in her hand. “Let me tell you something that might serve you well someday. A woman’s life doesn’t stop the second her husband decides to pick up and run off to God knows where,” she said.
“Missoula.”
“Whatever. I’m entitled to have friends.”
“He’s in Missoula,” Rodney repeated.
“So you say.” She tamped her cigarette in the ashtray, hard. “Let’s not fight about this,” she said, fingering a new cigarette from the pack but not lighting it up. “He’s a nice guy, Otis. But he’s not worth all of this heartburn.”
Rodney took an apple from the bowl in front of her. “I’m going to a friend’s,” he said.
She looked at him then, a teepee of lines on her forehead, and she didn’t need to say a single word for Rodney to hear what was on her mind. Friend. When had he ever mentioned a single friend since they’d come to Hope? Never—not even a name.
She nodded, her forehead smoothing over, and said, “That’s good.” Then she pushed off from the table and got up, brushing a hand over his back as she walked out of the kitchen, the smell of her bathrobe trailing as she left, through the living room and down the hall to her bedroom.